My first car was not a particularly fancy car. I actually can’t even remember what it was, other than small and black. A Ford Fiesta? Maybe a Fiat Punto? I’m not sure, I’ve never really been a petrol-head, and it was just a means to an end.

Anyway, it had a cassette player, and I was in the middle of my eBay years (lots of vinyl bought and sold through eBay in those days, God bless the extra income from flogging unwanted promos on there!). I found an auction selling dozens of classic hip hop albums on cassette, and picked the lot up for about £15. One of the albums that became a firm favourite was Black Sheep‘s, A Wolf In Sheep’s Clothing. Black Sheep were a member of the Native Tongues crew, alongside the likes of De La Soul, The Jungle Brothers and A Tribe Called Quest. In one of those weird twists of modern music, pretty much anyone who has been in a club in the last 20 years has heard a little Black Sheep, in the “Engine Engine Number 9, on the New York Transit Line…” bit of Fatman Scoop and Crooklyn Clan’s mega hit “Be Faithful“, which sampled The Choice Is Yours – top trivia, I wore a pastiche of that record sleeve’s artworkvin my finest hour, winning the UK Red Bull Thre3style final at Koko in London.

Ty announcing me as the UK Champ, woooooo! T-Shirt said “Don’t Sheep”, and there’d been a bit of killing by the looks of it.

And it turns out that it was just recently the 25th anniversary of the release! So here’s a great mix which takes in album tracks, alternate versions, remixes and the original sample material. Enjoy!

PBR Streetgang have been on my radar for a long time, yet somewhere out on the fringes, with only a handful of tracks making into my sets despite all being excellent. A friend posted this mix the other day on Facebook with an endorsement of it’s quality, and I thought it was high time I gave their DJing a proper listen.

And you know what? It’s jolly good. I sat working away on some admin type nonsense, shazaming merrily away every few minutes as a new corker came through the speakers.

I was lucky enough to hit the new Shoreditch outlet of Dirty Bones a couple of times during their soft launch, and on the 2nd visit got chatting with a few of the staff. One thing led to another, and here is a mix I’ve put together for them celebrating our mutual love of classic hip hop, and the funk and disco sounds that inspired it.

I really enjoyed making this mix, so hopefully I will do a 2nd volume of my Boom Bap Y’all mix soon!